Marketing costs make up the step from CM2 to CM3 in the profit waterfall. Most of your marketing spend is pulled automatically from connected ad platforms, but you can also add manual entries for any spend that is not covered by a connector.
Sources of marketing cost data
Source | How it works |
Facebook / Meta connector | OAuth-connected. Ad spend syncs every 6 hours for every connected ad account. |
Google Ads connector | OAuth-connected. Pulls spend per campaign every 6 hours. |
Axon connector | API key. Pulls Axon campaign spend every 6 hours. |
Manual entries | Anything you add by hand — influencer fees, TikTok, Reddit, podcast ads, agency retainers. |
Connecting an ad platform
See the platform-specific articles for step-by-step connection guides:
Connecting Facebook / Meta Ads
Connecting Google Ads
Connecting Axon
After connecting, spend syncs automatically. You do not need to enter anything manually for those platforms.
Adding manual marketing costs
Go to Costs Setup → Marketing.
Click Add cost.
Name it (e.g. "Q2 influencer campaign").
Choose a calculation type:
Fixed amount — one-off spend, spread across a date range.
Percentage of revenue — useful for affiliate or revenue-share deals.
Set the effective dates — this is critical for spreading a lump sum across days.
How spend is attributed to days
Auto-synced spend is attributed to the exact day the ad platform reports it. Manual fixed-amount costs are spread evenly across the date range you set, so a $9,000 influencer payment with a 30-day range lands as $300/day on the dashboard.
ROAS vs POAS
Because Setpilot tracks marketing inside the P&L waterfall, you can see both:
ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) = Net Revenue ÷ Ad Spend. Useful but misleading — does not account for product or order costs.
POAS (Profit on Ad Spend) = CM2 ÷ Ad Spend. The true efficiency number — tells you whether your ads are actually making money.
Agency fees and overhead
If you pay an agency a monthly retainer, decide where it belongs based on how it relates to sales:
Marketing — if the retainer is specifically for running ads that drive orders.
Other — if it is a general SEO, content, or brand agency not tied directly to ad performance.